"Managing" the Rapture CD?

Hello. Occasionally I see someone mention "managing" Rapture's cooldown to maximize mana return from this talent. I'm hoping someone will explain exactly what is meant by managing this talent's CD. On my priest, I'm usually assigned to tank healing, and I tend to use PW:S pretty much every time it's available on the tank. There's not much "managing" going on, as I use it whenever possible.

When I'm raid healing, I also tend to use PW:S on anyone who gets low, as well as on the tanks as often as it's available, certainly more frequently than every 12 seconds.

So what am I missing? I don't really have mana issues in raids, and am usually lowest on over-healing. I do use power auras to track rapture procs, but perhaps I'm missing the point of tracking it because it doesn't really affect how I play.

If you blast shields with little regard to your mana then you prolly shouldn't worry about it. In this super nerfed content and with even 378 gear there isn't much need to play conservatively.

In order to manage rapture though you need to track the cooldown of rapture. This can be done many ways but I prefer Ingela's Rapture myself. There are more efficient ways to play disc in the current tier and they also happen to be more throughput then rampant shield usage.

Honestly at this point I spam shields like its WOTLK, disc mana is ridiculous, and I only got 2 piece with some pvp gear. You can always get addons to track the internal CD like tellmewhen or power auras probably if you really cared.

If I carry on the scenario
- Shield pops (Rapture: 4 sec, Weakened Soul: 14 sec)
- heal Rap = 2 WS = 8
- GH rap = 0 WS = 2
2 seconds later you bubble again and get rapture started again - so what you lose is 2 seconds of rapture "downtime" every 14 seconds?
So lets say its over 15 seconds for simple maths - 5 minute boss fight = 300 / 15 = 20 raptures - if you rapture on 13 seconds for example you get 300 seconds / 13 = 23 raptures so 3 raptures = around 30k mana? Do I understand it or am I way off?

You also spent an entire shield's mana that may have been unnecessary (using Heal or Greater for efficiency instead).

During times of high tank damage, there are certainly times to say "who the heck cares" but there are others where you want to stretch that mana a little bit, particularly if you're running a low spirit build.

I see the inefficiencies in the above scenarios, yes, and the phrase "rapture management" is starting to make sense. To elaborate a bit further so to avoid this, you'd wait to cast your shield (if not absolutely necessary) until after rapture is available?

"Managing" your Raptures is only really needed if you are, or expect to be, pressed for mana. It really depends on the fight mechanics as well, as often you'll have periods of high damage followed by a lull, then a high damage phases followed by another lull.

As long as you have mana to spam shields, flash heal or what not until the boss is dead, you don't need to think about Rapture.

For some, that might be the case, but often you need to do some sort of combining, where you only shield to gain Rapture during the lulls, and you go to town in the more hectic periods, for example.

Shannox is a pretty simple and straight forwards example where you can use this technique (not that it's strictly needed since he's fairly easy, but it's a good illustration). While the tank has low stacks of Jagged Tear you can safely shield the tank only for Rapture procs, while with higher stacks of Jagged Tear and more incoming damage, you can gain higher HPS while shielding as soon as Weakened Soul has worn off. Shielding often is going to be more taxing on mana and you may get your timing for Rapture all wrong, but if mana is not an issue then it's no problem.

You also spent an entire shield's mana that may have been unnecessary (using Heal or Greater for efficiency instead).

During times of high tank damage, there are certainly times to say "who the heck cares" but there are others where you want to stretch that mana a little bit, particularly if you're running a low spirit build.

Doesn't shield have a better efficiency than Greater heal for a Disc priest?

Doesn't shield have a better efficiency than Greater heal for a Disc priest?

Efficiency in terms of mana yes, if we only cast a shield every 12 seconds we would get more mana back then we used but efficiency in terms of healing is nada as shield is really only a 50% damage reduction/absorb for a single hit every 6 seconds if cast with SoS.

To be honest other then rapture I only use shield for weakened soul debuff for the 10% extra crit as for me raid buffed it puts me near enough to 50% crit rating.

Doesn't shield have a better efficiency than Greater heal for a Disc priest?

It's definitely not more efficient at all. With 44% mastery, bubble only absorbs a bit over 30k dmg. However, fully raid buffed in mostly 378, priests can greater heal upwards of 60 - 65k, with a 30k+ divine aegis on the target, effectively healing over 100k on one heal. Bubble is good for two things... Mana regen, and casting something on the move if people need heals. Mainly I keep Rapture on the ICD, and use shields when running side to side on Rag. That's about it. Much more efficient healing.

While the above scenarios mainly focus on MT healing, don't forget that in many scenarios you can simply cast shields on cd on the tank, and use shields on the OT/raid (whoever is taking damage) to cover the times then the 'timing' on your MT shield is bad.

Personally I use WeakAuras to show w/e rapture is on cooldown. No shiny thingy in my screen means it's time to get a shield cracked asap if possible.

---------- Post added 2011-10-07 at 04:55 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Vilonic

However, fully raid buffed in mostly 378, priests can greater heal upwards of 60 - 65k, with a 30k+ divine aegis on the target, effectively healing over 100k on one heal.

That's assuming a crit though. The difference is far smaller for non-critheals, and that's even disregarding the casting time on gheal + the speedboost you get on your next gheal after a shield.

I see the inefficiencies in the above scenarios, yes, and the phrase "rapture management" is starting to make sense. To elaborate a bit further so to avoid this, you'd wait to cast your shield (if not absolutely necessary) until after rapture is available?

Actually, there are a few times you might want to pull your shield a little earlier, even in the mana conservation mode. Dropping it at 10 seconds so that it breaks on the swing at 12, instead of at 12 for the swing at 15.

get ingela's rapture or a rapture power aura (lots out there, just google it)

I didn't think I had "bad" rapture management until I started watching it and realizing how much mana return I was wasting by not timing things "better"
There are a million variations of the above scenarios but it comes down to missing a rapture proc (mana gain) because the tank was shielded too early. OFC if the tank NEEDS shielding, shield him. But if your rapture's off cd in 3 seconds and a penance and gheal will do the trick until then - that's "usually" the better choice.

I don't have mana issues as disc (or holy) but with better rapture management I have MORE mana for MORE heals. On farm fights it may be unnecessary, but when working on progression bosses like heroic rag - having that extra mana for when shit hits the fan can prevent a wipe. There's no reason to not try to improve rapture management.